Archive for the ‘WLA Awards’ Category

In 1966, Washington State University graduate student Dorys Crow Grover joined the fledgling Western Literature Association and started attending its conferences. From her books on WLA’s first Distinguished Achievement Award recipient, Vardis Fisher, to her work on Hemingway and Graves, Professor Grover helped to develop the field of western American literary studies. After teaching for over two decades at East Texas State University, Professor Grover retired in 1993, splitting her time between Texas and Pendleton, Oregon, where she grew up.

One of her doctoral students, Joyce Kinkead, Professor of English at Utah State University, has created the Dorys Crow Grover Award in recognition of her mentor’s dedication to both western American literature and to graduate students. Now in its fourth year, the Dorys Crow Grover Award, in the amount of $200 cash and a banquet ticket, will be given to two graduate students presenting at this year’s annual conference whose papers contribute to our critical understandings of region, place, and space in western American literatures.

Creative work is not considered for the Grover Awards.

Please submit an abstract by the proposal deadline. Once your proposal has been accepted, submit the complete, conference-length paper (not exceeding 15 pages) with a cover letter indicating that you wish to be considered for the Dorys Crow Grover Award to our presidents. The deadline for the completed paper is July 15.

You may submit the same paper for the Taylor Award, if you wish. Award recipients are expected to attend the banquet, where they will receive the award, and to send a letter with the delivered paper to Dorys Crow Grover AFTER the conference.

Note: To be eligible for this award, you must be registered as a graduate student at the time of the conference. And the award can only be received once.

WLA/Charles Redd Center K-12 Teaching Awards

The Western Literature Association and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies are sponsoring two K-12 Teaching Awards that will provide teachers with the opportunity to attend and present at the Western Literature Association Annual Meeting in Estes Park, Colorado, during September 18-21, 2019. The selected teachers will share their instructional plans and teaching approaches at the conference on a K-12 Teaching Panel on Saturday, September 21.

The prize will include conference registration, an award banquet ticket, a WLA membership, and $700 cash toward conference related costs such as hotel and airfare. Prize winners must attend the WLA conference and present on the WLA/Redd Center K-12 Educator Prize panel on Saturday, September 21. Continuing Education credit may be available. Please check with your district’s professional development office.

Instructional plans

Instructional plans may focus on any author or theme related to the literature of the American West, broadly defined. We encourage teachers to submit their new and existing teaching ideas. The following topics and approaches are encouraged:

• Women writers of the American West
• American Indian authors
• Latina/o authors
• Creative slants to teaching the “canonical” authors of the American West
• Interdisciplinary teaching plans as well as approaches to teaching drama of and about the American West
• Environmental Writing• Instructional plans that integrate the conference theme, “Not Cloudy All Day: Climates of Change in the American West”

Instructional Plans should be based on a focused 2-4 week unit on a specific theme, author, work of literature, etc. You do not need to include daily lesson plans, but you may submit supplemental discussion questions, assignment sheets, etc. The provided instructional plan format is very flexible and just a guideline. You are welcome to develop a format and structure that applies to your teaching and classroom context and grade level.

All applicants for the prize will be sent a written release that allows the WLA and the Charles Redd Center to post your lesson plans on their websites and to possibly include your lesson plans in other publications. Your work will remain your own and you will be given appropriate citation and credit in any digital or print reproductions of your work. The release must be signed and returned for you to be eligible to win the prize.

Interested in viewing the winning instructional plans of previous years?

Jennifer Kawecki and Hakan Armagan, Burke High School, Omaha, NE, “My Land, Our Land: Exploring the Ethics of Energy Policy, Consumption, and Sustainability Using Aldo Leopold’s ‘The Land Ethic’,” a cooperative effort by an English and a physics teacher.

The association sponsors several awards each year. All of them are awarded at the annual conference. For descriptions of each award, click on the links below. If you have further questions regarding any of these awards, please contact Sabine Barcatta or the contact person listed for the individual award.

Instituted in 1993 and named for a WLA president and two founding members of the association, this award goes to a longtime WLA member for exceptional contributions to the association.

Delbert Wylder was not just a WLA president and founding member of the WLA, but a lifelong contributor to all things WLA, who kept in touch personally with many of the early members. At his memorial, he was described as follows: “Family, friends, books, and wine: these were the four elements of Delbert Wylder. Put them together and you get The Quintessential Deb, a charming, occasionally eccentric combination of humor, warmth, and high spirits.” Deb Wylder himself described his wife, Edith, as “such a pleasure to live with every day” (communication with Dorys Grover, 2000).

To nominate a recipient for this award at the 2018 Conference, please submit 3-4 paragraphs of explanation, detailing the nominee’s contributions to the WLA over the years. Several people can nominate the same person. Different perspectives are helpful to the judging committee. Group nominations are also acceptable.

Fifty-four years after the founding of the Western Literature Association and Western American Literature, scholarship of the literary West is thriving in both quantity and quality. To honor outstanding, single-author scholarly books on the literature and culture of the American West, the Western Literature Association seeks nominations for the annual Thomas J. Lyon Book Award.

TO QUALIFY FOR THIS AWARD, BOOKS MUST

* have a 2018 publication date
* be an outstanding, single-author, book-length study on the literature and culture of the American West

The past presidents of the Western Literature Association sponsor this award and invite you TO NOMINATE A BOOK FOR THIS AWARD.

The Don D. Walker Prize is given annually to the best essay published on western American literature during the previous calendar year (for example, the 2019 winner will have published an essay in 2018). “Western” in this context is defined broadly and refers to all of North America that historically or critically has been considered “West” as well as to comparative studies of the American West that cross regional or national boundaries.

Nominations are solicited from presses and journals, as well as from individuals. Self-nominations are accepted. The prize selection committee is made up of Western Literature Association members.

The award is given at the annual Western Literature Association conference. It is not necessary to be a member of the association to win the award.

Please submit the essay or article you wish to nominate (preferably by electronic attachment) to susan.kollin@montana.edu.

Named in honor of the first editor of Western American Literature, and also one of the Western Literature Association’s founders and presidents, the Taylor Award is a prestigious award juried by a team of experts in the field and given annually to a work of scholarship submitted by a graduate student for the annual conference. Creative work is not considered for the Taylor; however, creative work may be submitted to the association’s Manfred Prize, and graduate student participants have been successful in winning that in the past (see Manfred Award).

For the Taylor, submit an abstract by the proposal deadline. Once your proposal has been accepted, submit the complete, conference-length paper (not exceeding 15 pages) with a cover letter indicating that you wish to be considered for the Taylor Award to the conference president. The deadline for the completed paper is July 15. Please send it to both of our presidents: Drs. SueEllen Campbell and Alex Hunt.

The award consists of a $200 cash prize and a banquet ticket.

Note: To be eligible for this award, you must be registered as a graduate student at the time of the conference. And the award can only be received once.

Instituted in 2001, the Creative Writing Award goes to the writer of the best piece of creative writing (whether poetry, short story, memoir, or other creative nonfiction), read by the writer at the fall conference and submitted in full length (for judging purposes/no longer than 10 double-spaced pages). The winning entry will be read as part of a panel, so the time to read the piece may not exceed 20 minutes.

To be eligible for the award, a piece cannot have been accepted for publication in any form by the submission deadline, and you do have to submit an abstract by the June deadline. Do not submit the full-length work unless your abstract has been accepted first.

Recipients of the Creative Writing Award

Year

Recipient

Piece

2018

Sydney Thompson

"Thataway"

2017

Cheyenne Marco

"Water Signs"

2016

Erin Flanagan

"The Rule of Threes"

2015

Michael Branch

"Dark Cliffy Spot: Naming a Place, Placing a Name"

2014

Lisa Knopp

"Groundwork"

2013

No prize was awarded.

2012

David Thacker

"The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness and Other Poems"

2011

Doreen Pfost

"Trailing Consequences"

2010

Liz Stephens

"Ten Years I'll Never Get Back"

2009

Denice Turner

"Shadow Legacy"

2008

J. J. Clark

“As Is”

2007

Joshua Dolezal

“Selway by Headlamp”

2006

Russ Beck

“When I Believe in Faith”

2004

Terre Ryan

“In the Name of the Bomb: Confessions of a Cold War Catholic Kid”

2003

Laurie Clements Lambeth

“Fluid on the Brain”

2002

Michael L. Johnson

“Southwestern Afllatus”

2001

Lee Ann Roripaugh

“‘Mitten Springs’ and Other Poems Searching for Home: Japanese Americans in the American West”

This award was instituted by the WLA Executive Council in 2005 and was given for the first time at the 2006 WLA Conference in Boise. It is awarded every other year (in even years).

The Susan J. Rosowski Award recipients

Year

Recipient

2018

No award was given.

2016

William R. Handley

2014

Evelyn I. Funda

2012

Melody Graulich and Annette Kolodny

2010

Cheryll Glotfelty

2008

Susan Naramore Maher

2006

James H. Maguire

Susan Rosowski (1942–2004), long-time WLA member and University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Adele Hall University Professor, epitomized what it means to be a generous and caring mentor and teacher. While her service to the Association and to Cather studies on a national level was exemplary and her scholarship (The Voyage Perilous [1986] and Birthing a Nation [1999]) was singular and remains widely used, Sue is best remembered as a teacher and mentor of unparalleled quality.The association welcomes nominations of outstanding teachers and mentors in the field of western American literature. Candidates can be nominated by students or colleagues with a letter of support addressed to the award decision committee; candidates can also self-nominate. Once nominated, the candidate will be notified and invited to submit supporting materials that may include the following:

Letters of support from students, editors, and/or faculty peers

Syllabi, especially for courses using western American literature

Narrative letter about teaching/mentoring philosophy

Documentation of advising

Pedagogical publications or other evidence of innovative curriculum design

Once nominated, the candidate stays in the pool of nominees for two award cycles. However, members who were nominated prior to the previous award cycle may be renominated and may resubmit updated materials. Members who have previously won the award will not be considered for a second nomination. Nominees are strongly encouraged to attend the WLA conferences during which their files are being considered.Letters of nomination (by fellow WLA members, fellow faculty at home universities, students, or self-nominations) are due June 1, 2018.

Nominations or questions about the award may be addressed via email toEvelyn Funda, Rosowski Chair,or by mail to

Evelyn Funda
English Department
Utah State University
3200 Old Main Hill
Logan UT 84321-3200.

The WLA honors the great writer and scholar Louis Owens for his contributions to western American and American Indian literary studies and for his unfailing generosity as a colleague, teacher, and mentor. The goal of the Louis Owens Awards is to build for the future of the Western Literature Association by modeling Owens’ own support and encouragement of diverse graduate student engagement in western literature and culture studies.

The Owens Awards are intended to foster ever-greater diversity within the WLA membership, to help broaden the field of western American literary studies, and to recognize both graduate student scholarship and financial need. Since its inception in 2004 through an anonymous donation, 28 scholarships have been awarded so far.

PLEASE HELP US KEEP THIS AWARD GOING AND DONATE TODAY:

THANK YOU!

To be eligible for this award, you must be registered as a graduate student at the time of the conference. You are not eligible for this award if you have received it previously.

To apply, please submit the following to Prof. Lisa Tatonetti, Chair of the Awards Committee:

If you are interested in applying for this award, submit a paper proposal for participation in the conference by May 20. If your paper is accepted, you can then submit the above-mentioned award application materials. If you are awarded one of the Owens stipends, you are expected to attend most of the conference. Please see conference details for the 2019 WLA Conference. If you have any questions regarding the Owens Awards, please contact Lisa Tatonetti.

The Western Literature Association is the most welcoming and supportive professional organization that I have encountered during my graduate education. The faculty of the WLA are committed to graduate student mentorship and encourage student scholarship by offering valuable feedback and creating spaces for exchange and collaboration.

Through the generous support of the Louis Owens Award committee, I was able to attend the 2016 annual meeting in Big Sky, Montana, and present work in progress that considers speculative futures, settler colonialism, and animality in Philp K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The WLA has allowed me, an interdisciplinary scholar, to develop the literary studies aspects of my work. The WLA is particularly supportive of Native American and Indigenous studies for both emerging and established voices in the fields. The WLA also actively creates spaces for sexuality and gender studies.

Through this organization, I have made important and lasting connections with faculty and students that will continue to enhance my intellectual life. At the WLA Conference, I have had the pleasure of interacting with scholars such as Lisa Tatonetti, Bill Handley, Chadwick Allen, Lorenzo Veracini, Dustin Tahmahkera, and Alex Calder. The WLA is an excellent community and venue for emerging scholars working on any aspect of Western American culture.

Western Literature Association (WLA)

Founded in 1965, the Western Literature Association (WLA) is a non-profit, scholarly association that promotes the study of the diverse literature and cultures of the North American West, past and present.

Western American Literature (WAL)

(The Journal)

Published by the Western Literature Association, Western American Literature is the leading journal in western American literary studies.